George E Holtzapple (1862-1946) and oxygen therapy for lobar pneumonia: the first reported case (1887) and a review of the contemporary literature to 1899

Abstract

A commemorative plaque in York Hospital in Pennsylvania, USA, records that George E Holtzapple MD is the physician 'who discovered the use of oxygen for the treatment of pneumonia on March 6, 1885'. This paper suggests that Dr Holtzapple was not the first to use oxygen for pneumonia patients but was the first to publish a case report with a reasoned physiological explanation of oxygen therapy. His publication was intended, in his own words, to benefit 'average country practitioners' who had no other means of learning about this valuable therapy.

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